Creative Writing, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Medieval History

LibraryThing is an online library catalog where you enter what you’re reading, and others do the same, and this makes it easy for you to find people who have similar interests and tastes as yours. Read the description from the LibraryThing Web site below:

What is LibraryThing?

LibraryThing is a site for book lovers.

LibraryThing helps you create a library-quality catalog of your books. You can do all of them or just what you’re reading now.

And because everyone catalogs online, they also catalog together. LibraryThing connects people based on the books they share.

How to Sign-Up

LibraryThing is VERY easy to join.

All you need to do is enter a user name and a password, and you’re done.

What’s on your Bookshelf?

Adding books to your catalog is also easy.

Just enter some words from the title, the author or an ISBN.

You don’t have to type everything in. LibraryThing gets all the right data from Amazon.com and over 680 libraries around the world, including the Library of Congress.

Just click on the book to add it to your catalog.

Master of your Domain

Your catalog shows all the books you’ve entered. You can look at your catalog in either “list” or “cover” view.

You can search your books, sort your books, edit book information, and apply “tags.”

You can rate your books and write reviews.

Truth about Books

LibraryThing knows a lot about books.

The book information page gives you library-quality data.

It’s also full of social information. Each book page shows you who has the book and what they think about it—tags, reviews, even conversations.

LibraryThing knows how books connect, providing some of the best recommendations on the web.

LibraryThing cares about books, not about SELLING books.

Your Profile

Your profile connects you to everyone else on LibraryThing. If you want, you can tell people all about yourself and your library. (Or, you can keep it completely private.)

Your profile connects you to people who share your books. With over 406,000 users and 26 million books in the system, you’ll find some “eerily similar” libraries.

Groups and Talk

You can create and join groups on LibraryThing. You can make a group for a club, a place, or even a private group for just your friends.

You can talk in the group forum, search all group members’ libraries at once, or check out the Group Zeitgeist to spot shared books.

With Talk, the forum system, you can see the conversations happening in all groups, or just your groups. You can also find just the topics that mention your books.

Local

LibraryThing Local is a gateway to thousands of local bookstores, libraries and book festivals—and to all the author readings, signings, discussions and other events they host.

You can keep track of interesting events in your area, show off your favorite bookstores and libraries, and see who else loves the same places you do.

I haven’t set up my profile yet but have plans to try it out. Seems useful both to the casual reader and even the writer who may be seeking other writers with similar interests.

Tags: Writing Resources // 5 Comments »

The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

Paperback - 512 pages
Publisher - Roc Trade (April 5, 2005)
Average Customer Review on Amazon - 4 stars

Editorial Review from Publishers Weekly:

In this wonderfully imaginative historical fantasy from Kay (A Song for Arbonne), seemingly random deeds connect Erling (Viking) raiders and Anglcyn (English) and Cyngael (Welsh) princes: If only Bern Thorkellson hadn’t stolen that horse in a desperate act of vengeance against his sorry fate; if only Dai ab Owyn hadn’t stepped outside the safety of Brynfell right at the moment when the Erlings attacked; if only Ivarr Ragnarson hadn’t been born ill-formed and downright cruel; if only Aeldred hadn’t been king of the Anglcyn; if only Thorkell Einarson had murdered only one man and not the second; if only Alun ab Owyn hadn’t stepped into that pool on a moonless night and seen the Queen of the Elves in procession. At first glance, each individual’s act appears to be a normal human response. It’s only later, as the characters’ paths cross, that the pieces come together to weave a dazzling tapestry of conjoined fates. Solid research, filtered through vibrant prose, serves to convey a sense of how people really lived and died in Viking and Anglo-Saxon times and how they might have interacted with the realm of magic on a daily basis. Readers of lighter fantasy should be forewarned—the novel contains a lot of gruesome killing and the fairy world plays a relatively minor role, as do women.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Chapter One Excerpt:

A horse, he came to understand, was missing. Until it was found nothing could proceed. The island marketplace was crowded on this grey morning in spring. Large, armed, bearded men were very much present, but they were not here for trade. Not today. The market would not open, no matter how appealing the goods on a ship from the south might be.

He had arrived clearly at the wrong time.

Firaz ibn Bakir, merchant of Fezana, deliberately embodying in his brightly coloured silks (not nearly warm enough in the cutting wind) the glorious Khalifate of Al-Rassan, could not help but see this delay as yet another trial imposed upon him for transgressions in a less than virtuous life.

Tags: Medieval History, Historical Fiction, Novel, Fiction // Add Comment »

I’m a regular reader of David Anthony Durham’s blog, and a recent post of his discusses his experience with breaking into the publishing industry. David is a good writer. I’m currently half-way through his latest novel Acacia and am enjoying it. It’s always interesting to hear advice from authors who have been there, to give us non-published authors a bit of perspective and encouragement. I found his post especially interesting because he scanned in some of the rejection letters he received early in his career. He, like everyone else, went through the stages of disappointment and rejection, but in the end, it all makes us stronger writers. Remain dedicated and determined, and you will succeed.

Read David’s Post: Some Questions from Vincent

Tags: Publishing, Creative Writing // Add Comment »

Chancery
[chan-suh-ree, chahn-]
Middle English chancerie, alteration of chancelerie chancellery, from Anglo-French, from chanceler

Part of the king’s household and responsible for writing his writs and other instruments of government.
   (Sayles, George O. The King’s Parliament of England, 144)

Tags: Medieval Glossary, Medieval History // Add Comment »

The Burning Times by Jeanne Kalogridis

Paperback - 400 pages
Publisher - HarperCollins Publishers Ltd; New Ed edition (April 15, 2002)
Average Customer Review on Amazon

Editorial Review from Publishers Weekly:

Dracul, turns from fangs and bloodsucking to gnosticism and witchcraft in this paranormal romance-cum-medieval fantasy. In 14th-century France, Franciscan abbess Marie Fran?oise is arrested by the Inquisition on charges of heresy and communion with the devil. As the inquisitors prepare to burn her at the stake, Dominican scribe Michel is ordered to secure Marie’s confession. Yet Michel is inexplicably drawn to the abbess, convinced of her holiness and determined to find her innocent. Marie, whose true name is Sybille, confesses to her pagan upbringing at the hands of her loving yet hedonistic grandmother. Following her sexual initiation into the cult of Diana, known as the “Race,” and the burning of her grandmother at the stake, Sybille flees to a nearby abbey, impersonates a nun and tends to the victims of the plague with her magical touch. Hailed as the Goddess Diana incarnate by her fellow nuns, who are revealed to be female members of the beleaguered Knights Templar, she continues her quest for her “Beloved,” Luc de la Rose, whom she must couple with in order to continue the Race. The author is at her best relating in gruesome detail the sweeping effects of the Black Death on provincial life. Otherwise, this meandering narrative is plagued by the sophomoric use of proper nouns (Evil, Race, Sight, etc.), overwrought dream sequences and one-dimensional characters. Kalogridis aims to depict Sybille as an incandescent and mysterious heroine, but she comes across as a melodramatic caricature. Agent, Russell Galen of Scovil, Chichak and Galen. (Apr.) Forecast: Fans of Kalogridis’s vampire trilogy will be drawn to this novel but they won’t be satisfied with it. Negative word-of-mouth may contribute to depressing sales.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Chapter One Excerpt:

It is a hard, defeaning rain.

Fast, malignant clouds shroud the moon and stars, and the softer velvet black of the night sky; profound darkness veils all, save for those instants when lightning illuminates the distant mountains, and I see:

My galloping mount’s coat gleaming like onyx, his wet mane whipping like a Medusa’s crown in the angry wind; see, too, the road to Carcassonne before us, studded with stones, brambles of wild rose, and bushes of rosemary that yield their astringent fragrance as they are crushed beneath the horse’s hooves.

Tags: Medieval History, Historical Fiction, Novel, Fiction // Add Comment »